Thomas Kuntz Creates Eerie Animatronics from Your Nightmares

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For all of you art lovers out there, you need to know about Thomas Kuntz. He’s a contemporary American multi-media artist from Arizona who focuses on creating intricate, dark, and theatrical moving sculptures that evoke true emotion.

Kuntz’ latest effort are eerie animatronic mechanisms that look like they’re straight out of an abandoned theme park, or the nightmare you had last night. Let’s take a look at his work through his Instagram account:

Somehow, I can’t stop looking at this one. It’s some kind of morbid fascination with a figure who is both incredibly lifelike, and also terror-inducing. The automation is so simple, yet this character is seemingly at her wits’ end. Her movements are strained, almost harsh. It’s very unsettling, but I’d also like to reach out and touch her.

It’s interesting to note that Kuntz’ father was a surgeon and his mother was a folk artist/doll maker, because his own work seems like the perfect mash-up of those two things. There is undoubtedly a surgical quality to it. Kuntz studies anatomy and the human condition, how people move through their space, and recreates aspects of his findings with the creative and technical side of his brain. His work also has a wonderfully magical, childlike feeling, it sort of reminds me of figures I might find in an old-timey magic show.

If you’re keen to explore further, Kuntz and his animatronic sculptures are going to be at Weekend of Wonder in mid-September (a three day DIY festival in Riverside, California). According to the website, it’s a jam-packed weekend of workshops, tech demos, performances, food and activities, so I thoroughly recommend checking it out.

And if you just want to learn more, you can can follow the art adventures of Kuntz through his Instagram account: haxanthrobo, and check out more of his work through his website: Artomic.